Before You Can Do What You Love, You Have to Find What You Love

I've been typing things like "5 year old prodigy" into YouTube and seeing what comes up. My wishful thinking wants to believe I'm seeing super talented, small 24 year olds, but then those filmmakers would all be winning the Oscars for special effects.

My daughter is almost 5. This means the world is our oyster when it comes to classes. And I am a big believer in education. My mom did it for me and my sisters and I want to do it for my daughter. I want her to try everything. If she likes something she can stick with it, if she doesn't, the only rules are she has to finish out the session and she doesn't get the t-shirt/ice skates/soccer shoes/golf clubs/sailboat/wok until she sticks with it for longer than a week. it's very democratic. She can veto any class before she starts it, except swimming.

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The thing is I get so competitive watching her. I'm at the ice rink watching an 11-year-old who can skate backwards and is just starting on the jumps. She's been skating for 3 years. I want my child to be a good as her, to have the drive to keep practicing. I am jealous. I know my child is not going to stick with skating. She likes it, but she doesn't Love it with the capital "L" that drives kids to want to fall down and get up again and again and again in a 40 degree room. I take her to caperoria and there's a 3-year-old boy who's a natural and eagerly taking the class 3x a week. I get jealous. Same goes for ballet. There's the perfect little girls with their hair in tidy buns watching the teacher with rapt attention and straight backs. There is mine...over...there...doing something...oh look...she's making faces at herself in the mirror...

Tennis, soccer, karate, skateboarding, making model rockets...there are kids on weekends practicing/doing with one of their parents and enjoying it.

But, I'm not jealous of their success.

I am jealous of their focus. These kids have found something they love to do.

They have found something to concentrate on. An activity to ground them. A sport to work on getting better at. Something that deserves the I love (sport/activity) sticker on the back window of the SUV.

I hope my kid finds something she loves to do whether it be tap dancing, fly fishing or decoupage.

Don't we all want our kids to discover what it is they love to do? Something where they love it so much it doesn't matter if they win or lose, just that they're doing it.

I visualize my child happy as a child and as an adult, but at what and doing what eludes my non-psychic powers.